


Between a Rock and a Cold Place

by The_Uninspired



Category: Naruto
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Reluctant Friendship, Team Bonding, can be read as pre-relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 01:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Uninspired/pseuds/The_Uninspired
Summary: It’s the middle of the night, she’s tired, she’s cold, and she’s stuck with her frustrating mission partner behind enemy lines.Did she mention she’s cold?





	Between a Rock and a Cold Place

“I never should have let him talk us into this _stupid_ mission!” Sakura spat under her breath. Said breath appeared in front of her face like a cloud for just a moment, visible even under the limited moonlight, before it was snatched away by another gust of freezing wind. Still mumbling darkly, Sakura shifted until her back was to this new gale and hunched over her pathetic pile of sticks and leaves. Again she struck the two halves of the fire starter together. This time the sparks didn’t even touch the blackened leaves before disappearing into the wind. With a strangled yell she hurled the tool to the ground.

“When I get back,” She growled, “I’m going to _kill_ him.”

Behind her, her mission partner cleared his throat.

“Sakura-chan,” Lee cleared his throat again, revealing a level of nervousness he rarely seemed capable of unless they were alone together. “Is there some way I can help? I know I cannot use jutsu, but sensei made sure to teach us-”

“Sure!” She threw up her hands, quite aware of how hysterical and immature she was being but far too cold and tired to properly care. “We’re only trapped behind enemy lines in the middle of the night, in the middle of the coldest recorded winter in the past decade, in the middle of a windstorm, when we haven’t slept for two days and we’re being tracked by three separate groups of hunter-nin as well as, probably, those gangsters you just _had_ to get into an honor-duel with and whose boss you killed!” She shoved herself back against the rock wall they were ostensibly using for shelter, although it didn’t seem to be helping. “It’s not like you can make it any worse!”

Lee looked at her with those big, inscrutable eyes and frowned. She waited for some kind of retort, more frustration ready on her tongue to be unleashed, but none came. Instead Lee nodded and scooted forward to her makeshift fire pit. Gently he picked up each half of the fire starter and cleaned off the dirt with his fingernail. Then, satisfied, he gave it a few strikes. His face was all pinched in concentration, his shoulders taut as he went through each motion with perfect precision. It was a reminder of the things Sakura appreciated about Lee, as little as she felt like appreciating anything right now. In the end though, his timing and practice could do little against nature herself. Each time he got a fire starting in the twigs, a particularly brutal gust of wind would blow it all away.

After the twentieth time this exact same thing happened, Sakura was about ready to knock herself out in frustration.

“Stop it, would you?” She snapped. “It’s not going to work and you’re driving me crazy.”

Lee stiffened a bit, but didn’t look up. Instead he clenched his jaw and stared down at the fire starter like it had just insulted his beloved Gai-sensei. Then, with a gravity that had even Sakura holding her breath, he struck against the twigs one last time.

The three measly sparks barely even appeared before they winked out.

Sakura resisted the urge to stretch out a leg and kick Lee in his thick skull. Gods, _Lee_. As if he could defeat the weather just by willing it so. She remembered now why she hated him sometimes.

Lee spent a while longer kneeling by the sticks, fists clenched against his knees and his big monster eyebrows all knotted up. Sakura was about ready to snap at him again, if only for the distraction from her rapidly decreasing core temperature, when he got up and joined her against the rock face.

“I’m sorry Sakura-chan.”

“Not as if you control the wind.” She mumbled, quite proud of herself for maintaining civility through her chattering teeth.

Lee’s frown deepened. It wasn’t often Rock Lee frowned, not even now that they were older and more experienced and had grown more jaded in that unavoidable way all ninja did. He smiled a bit less, perhaps, but he didn’t frown any more than he had when he was thirteen (and, presumably, for every year of his life before they’d met). He was still frighteningly obnoxious and frustratingly principled and louder than any professional covert operative ought to be. And so there was something unsettling about seeing him like this, something that chilled Sakura in a way that even the awful weather couldn’t.

“I should have pulled my hits more during that fight. He shouldn’t have died, not if I were fighting properly.” Lee said. Sakura did not have to wonder who he was talking about. Lee had been quieter than usual all day, since they’d escaped the gangster-controlled town at a frantic sprint.

“You wanted to grant him mercy. It wasn’t your fault he wouldn’t take it.” She said.

“I should have made him take it.” Lee insisted. “I didn’t want that to happen.”

Sakura didn’t ask him what he’d been expecting when he apprenticed under the Green Beast, a man famous for being able to take down whole troops of armed ninja with his bare fists. It was a silly question and unnecessarily cruel. After all, was she any different? Student of the Copy Ninja and an aspiring field medic. It was like the setup to a joke.

Instead of that, she said, “You tried. That’s got to matter for something.”

Lee turned to her and, like an idiot, like a sunrise, he smiled. “You’re right of course, Sakura-chan!”

She huffed. “Of course I’m right. I’m team leader.”

She wasn’t, actually. She usually was when the two of them were assigned missions together (an occurrence growing more and more frequent now that they’d begun to make a name for themselves with two-man B-ranks), but this time they’d been contracted as equal partners. Nevertheless Lee nodded and continued to beam.

Sakura shifted against the rock, and that was when she noticed it: her fingertips were going numb. She cursed and brought a hand up to her face. It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but her fingers were flushed. Fumbling with stiff hands Sakura wrapped her cloak tighter around herself. Then she shoved her fingers between her thighs and clenched her teeth against the stinging as they warmed up slightly. Despite the needle-pricking discomfort, however, they weren’t warming up as much as she’d hoped. The wind seemed to whip through her clothing despite its thickness, and even her inner thighs felt cold to the touch.

“Sakura-chan?” Lee asked.

Sakura opened her mouth to ask for assistance. Then she remembered just who she was sitting next to and groaned. It was just her luck, wasn’t it, to end up stranded and chakra-exhausted with the only ninja in the whole village who couldn’t perform a basic temperature-regulating first aid jutsu. Because of course, that was why they’d stopped at all when the whole world seemed to be biting at their heels. Not because Lee had tired out, oh no. He’d die before he got tired. No, it was because Sakura had finally hit her limits and all but collapsed. She’d hit her limit and now she was going to get frostbite and all her bits would fall off and then she’d get murdered by a bunch of gangsters probably no madder at Lee than she currently was.

“I hate my life!” She whined and lay down against her knees. 

“What’s wrong?” Lee asked, more urgent now. He inched close enough for their knees to touch. “Sakura-chan, what’s wrong? Is it the cold?”

“Yes!” She glared up at him. “Yes, it’s the cold!”

Lee blinked at her a couple of times like some kind of stupid puppy.

“How are you not cold?” She exclaimed. “You’re not even wearing your coat! What’s your problem?”

Lee shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t really get cold.”

“You don’t get cold?” Sakura repeated it back to him, as if saying it could force the answer to make more sense.

He grinned again, though this time it was more playful than blinding. “Not really, no!”

She waited a few beats, watching his face. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for though. She’d long resigned herself to the fact that Lee was just _like_ this.

“I take it back.” She said. “I hate _you_.”

Lee’s smile faded. He quirked his head like he was thinking hard and watched her. Then, before she could work up the energy to hit him, he said, “I have an idea.”

She nearly rolled her eyes. “Great. An idea. I hope it’s a good one, I don’t fancy having all my fingers fall off!”

“May I touch you?”

“Wh-what?” Sakura asked, taken aback.

Lee was still watching her with steady eyes and that serious set to his jaw. “I think that I can warm you. But to do it, I need to touch you. Is that okay?”

Sakura wanted to say no. She didn’t want anyone touching her right now, least of all Rock Lee. When had he last touched her anyways, when it wasn’t directly related to a mission or medical care? It had probably been almost two years ago, when he’d brushed a hand across her shoulder in greeting and she’d punched him in the nose. Gods, he’d been such a little creep back then. Well, maybe not a creep. Not intentionally anyways. Lee had always been an honest, well-meaning sort of creep.

“Yeah, okay.” She said. “Get on with it.”

Lee smiled at her. “Good!”

She braced herself for the kind of aggressive, overly invasive embrace she’d seen Lee give Gai. When he reached for her though it was with uncharacteristic gentleness.

Lee pressed himself up against her side and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Then, with his other arm, he took her knees and pulled her legs up over his lap. Then he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her against his chest.

She could feel his hands clasped loosely behind her back, resting against her rather than pressing. His chest was hot against her cheek and already her hands were starting to warm up.

“Is this okay?” He asked, sounding like he quite hoped it was.

She almost expected herself to fight back. She’d probably have wanted to under most circumstances. Sakura had come to realize that she was dreadfully contrary by nature. Now though she was too tired and cold to bother, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to get away from her new human heater.

“Yeah.” She said. “You’re really warm.”

Lee laughed in delight. “And you’re so cold! I should have asked you earlier if you were okay.”

“It’s not your job to take care of me.” She scolded.

“I know.” He said. His voice vibrated in his chest and echoed through her head. His hold around her relaxed a little, but he didn’t change his comfortable hold on her. “I still want to, though. No matter how many times you tell me not to. Even if you’re team leader. Even if you’re the medic. I’ll always take care of you.”

Exhaustion was starting to catch up with Sakura now that she was starting to warm up, but she was still awake enough to mutter, “Because I’m a fellow ninja? Or because I’m me?”

“Is it okay if it’s because you’re Sakura?”

Her eyelids were drooping, even as she could feel Lee’s heart beating faster in his chest. She’d never asked him if he was still in love with her. She’d assumed that he wasn’t anymore, that the childish crush had fallen away over the years as he’d gotten to learn who she really was. She’d have fallen out of love with herself, seeing all that she’d done and who she’d become over the years. She tried her best, she really did, but she of all people knew how little that meant. She was an unattractive, overly-specialized kunoichi with a somewhat abysmal personality and lacking in charm. Oh, she had a number of quite positive traits as well, but none she would consider particularly desirable in a romantic partner.

Of course, Lee wasn’t terribly well-off either in that department. Strange looking and even stranger dressing, with a distant-at-best relationship with reality and nonexistent volume control. And yet she liked him well enough. She liked his kindness, his heart, his ability to destroy things with his fists and terrify any civilians in the nearby vicinity. He tried his best. And to her, maybe, at the very least, that had come to mean something.

“Yeah.” She murmured. “It’s okay.”

What she thought but didn’t say was: _because you’re Lee._

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been fascinated by SakuLee. Maybe it's because he pays her as much attention as she pays the other boys in her life. Or maybe it's just because I like the idea of seeing Lee grow up and settle down a bit. I imagine that he grows into a healthier sense of respect for his crush but never quite stops loving her. Rather than chase her, he's simply there for her. And maybe she comes to appreciate that, if not romantically, than as a colleague and friend.


End file.
